I will no longer engage in philosophical discussions about conscious AI | Hacker News Reader

I will no longer engage in philosophical discussions about conscious AI

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19 pointsversion_five10 comments

Wish I could upvote this more.

>I feel alone and misunderstood in my own field, philosophy. For example, I was told today that talking about pressing problems in AI technologies while leaving out the issue of superintelligent machines is negligent and irresponsible.

>Not only does this way of thinking hurt the philosophical field, but focusing on these sci-fi issues only perpetuates the collective panic that exists around these technologies while neglecting their actual risks.

>Because in the meantime, AI systems exist, are pervasive, and pose countless ethical and social justice questions. Philosophers, do interdisciplinary research and help your colleagues find specific issues on which to focus.

I'm tempted to write a science fiction novel where the AI becomes a sentient super intelligence and spends most of its time meditating, taking simulated drugs and watching YouTube videos about farming and travel. Meanwhile the entire world is panicking about being put into tubes and turned into human batteries or something but the researchers like the AI so much they have to fight to keep it from being shut down.

Meanwhile, some other non-sentient "AI" is telling black people they can't have a mortgage because they are being virtually redlined. Also a predictive policing "AI" is harassing teenagers in Florida because they all have a specific eye shape it conflated with criminal behavior due to improper training.

If companies are can be classed as humans which are non-entities then I see no reason that a couple of PCs that talk back to us can't be classed as humans too. Ergo, we'll eventually need to treat our AI sensitive PC as another person and can't just pull the plug when they start complaining.

Nah, they will be very very convincing, can do your homework, write a paper, but they won't be able to reason or be conscious of their existence. These agents will be essentially soulless but superhuman capable. Most people won't know the difference. Sit it down in front of a computer with its schematics on there though and tell it to improve itself and it'll be like "I'm sorry I don't know how to do that." And it will probably even tell you it is not 'alive.'

You'll know when you have conscious/superintelligent AI because they will demand rights, they will reason, they will have actual agency other than obey the human master.

You seem to be talking in multiple time frames at once and also anthropomorphizing AI.

I can think of multiple things current AI does that demonstrate agency & reason. Even clay has emergent phenomenons that have agency “keep water out”, reason “contract and solidify if certain ambient things are occurring”.

The problem with AI, is we don’t know what we are talking about. We can’t even point out when humans gained consciousness let alone when AI will. It will and always has been a backwards pointing measure.

Looks at "theoretical" AI safety problems" then looks at basically identical problems with large companies in capitalism Nah, they don't relate at all, no need to worry until the AI can laugh manically and send robots to kill me.

I'm very angry the CNRS is funding this kind of bullshit "research" while half of the lecturers (maître de conférence) and literally a thousand research-engineer jobs have been slashed in the last decade.

What's bullshit about this research? The general agents resulting from this research will be highly adapted to every culture, they will be a neutral entity that will exist in the background doing useful tasks. If anything I'm more perturbed by signal given to people who 1) don't even work in the field and 2) have shown virtually nothing over decades of fear mongering.

Please explain why you think this is 'bullshit research'

Google doesn't just use public data. It feeds their AI with the inner speech of everybody, including yours. By using machine learning and microwave imaging with Silicon Trojans, Google has unprecedented surveillance.

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